Report: Rock River Valley among state's healthiest areas

Wednesday

Mar 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2011 at 9:43 PM

ROCKFORD — The Rock River Valley and northwestern Illinois in general include some of the healthiest counties in the state — including No. 1 in terms of self-reported quality of life, Jo Daviess County, according to the second annual County Health Rankings report, being released today by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Mike DeDoncker

ROCKFORD — The Rock River Valley and northwestern Illinois in general include some of the healthiest counties in the state — including No. 1 in terms of self-reported quality of life, Jo Daviess County, according to the second annual County Health Rankings report, being released today by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The report ranks Jo Daviess as Illinois’ fifth healthiest county overall. Other area counties in the top 20 are Stephenson at No. 19 and Ogle at No. 20.

Boone County ranks as No. 38, including being eighth best in the state in health behaviors, and Winnebago County — despite being rated second in the area in access to and quality of health care and first in environmental quality — is the lowest ranked of nine area counties at No. 72 overall.

The report, available online at countyhealthrankings.org, ranks the overall health of nearly every county in all 50 states by using a standard measurement of how healthy people are and how long they live. Julie Willems Van Dijk, an associate scientist and community engagement director for the public health institute, called the report “a picture of today’s health in your community” based on “the factors that drive those health outcomes that really influence whether we live as long as we can live and whether we live as healthy as we can live.”

Rockford Health Council Executive Director Becky Cook Kendall said the county rankings help to bolster the findings in the council’s 2010 Healthy Community Study, covering Winnebago and Boone counties, which was released in February.

“These county health rankings further support the work that we’re doing and the data that we’ve already collected,” said Cook Kendall, adding that subcommittee work connected to the Healthy Community Study is expected to begin within the next month, “and they give us a clearer picture of the health factors, as far as behaviors, clinical care, social and economic factors and whatever else is contained in that report. It will be that additional piece that gives us that snapshot of our counties.”

Winnebago County Public Health Administrator Mike Bacon said that, while the county rankings report is less detailed than the Healthy Community Study, “the findings of one corroborate the findings of the other very well.

“We’re a few notches better than last year (Winnebago County was ranked 77th in the 2010 report) but, certainly, nothing to brag about,” Bacon said. “Still, it’s far better to go up a few notches than it is to go down.”

He said the criteria that drop Winnebago County in the rankings report are the same as those identified in the Healthy Community Study — health behaviors such as smoking levels, obesity, sexually transmitted infections and teen birth rate as well as socio-economic factors like low high school graduation rates, unemployment, children in poverty and single-parent households earning below the statewide average.

Where Winnebago County compares well to others counties in Illinois, Bacon said, is in clinical care, percent of population with health insurance, ratio of primary care providers to population, preventable hospital stays and access to healthy foods. “We also do well in the few indicators that they have for physical environment,” he said. “Our air quality indicators are pretty exceptional.”

Researchers used five measures to assess the level of overall health, or health outcomes, for Illinois by county: the rate of people dying before age 75, the percent of people who report being in fair or poor health, the numbers of days people report being in poor physical and poor mental health, and the rate of low-birthweight infants.

The rankings also look at factors that affect people’s health within four categories: health behavior, clinical care, social and economic factors, and physical environment. Among the health factors they looked at: rates of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive drinking among adults, and teenage births; the number of uninsured adults, availability of primary care providers, and preventable hospital stays; rates of high school graduation, adults who have attended college, children in poverty; and community safety; access to healthy foods and air pollution levels.

“The one thing that’s missing that really drives health outcomes is genetics,” Willems Van Dijk said, “because, clearly, some things we’re just born with and we can modify somewhat with a good healthy lifestyle.” She genetics aren’t included in the rankings because there is no clear way to measure their effect on a community’s health and “we really want to focus on measuring things that people can actually change.”

She said the researchers try to choose a balance of measures that are obtained through survey or self report and those counted in specific reports but don’t perform any direct data collection themselves.

Willems Van Dijk said bringing the numbers to the attention of public health and health care officials is important but the researchers want to catch the attention of the general public.

“What we really want to see,” she said, “is more people joining with those public health practitioners and your health care leaders, because it’s about your business leaders and your economic development leaders looking at how can we bring good paying jobs into this community and it’s about your school district looking at it, and your community supporting your school district to make sure that children are getting a great education. We know that contributes to health.”

Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said, “The County Health Rankings help everyone see that much of what influences our health happens outside of the doctor’s office and where we live matters to our health. The good news is that there are things counties can do right away to help their residents lead healthier lives.”

To help counties translate the rankings into action, Lavizzo-Mourey said the foundation is launching a program — part of an initiative called Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health — to provide grants to up to 14 communities around the country to strengthen community efforts to improve health.